


your faith walks on broken glass

by orphan_account



Category: Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, M/M, Out of Character, but in my head its in character, damn a lot of these tags say the word character, i guess? wtf even is a character study, not me projecting onto a sociopath capitalist who isn't even supposed to have a deep character, weird poetry thingy?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26279989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "The wave surges up and Brad can feel it and he knows that he wants it and it’s all there, all of it, the glass and the waves and the storms and his boxes are floating away and he can’t let that happen so he pulls away and the wave is slowly sinking back down."
Relationships: Brad Bakshi/David Brittlesbee
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	your faith walks on broken glass

**Author's Note:**

> if i'm being fully honest. i watched geothermal escapism and was sad that i wasn't as sad as i thought i would be so then i was like damn i be like no emotions so then i sorta just wrote a vent piece thing in brad's name but i gave him a nice ending because yeah
> 
> title from 21 guns by green day

When Brad Bakshi was eleven years old, he thought he understood the world.

It was good. His eyes were clear and there was a sheet of glass coating it all. Encased in a bubble. A bubble of duck cartoons and laughing with his friends and sneaking glances at that boy from math class.

Glass shatters. But it starts slowly.

When Brad was twelve years old, he ran as far as he could down the beach, his bare feet pounding against the sand.

His lungs hurt. His feet hurt. His head hurt.

When Brad was thirteen years old, he knew that he didn’t care anymore.

Careful. Look at his eyes. There are shards of glass poking out.

When Brad was fourteen years old, he thought he understood the world again. He compartmentalized it into little boxes and kept it there. It was easier that way.

The boxes were a rush job; the tape was already starting to peel off by the next year.

Fast forward. Twenty-seven years later.

Mythic Quest. A game. A story. A legacy.

_Not my legacy_. But it would be, wouldn’t it? 

Brad rolls around his office, drumming his fingers together. He hums. It’s loud. It’s all too loud. 

He’s twelve years old again. The beach. Standing in the water. There’s a wave. He hopes it will crash down around him.

David walks in and smiles at him. Brad gives him a small wave.

Wave. Waves waves waves. Noise, water, hello how are you I’m sick of this?

He starts to say something. David turns to him. “What is it, Brad?”

The wave could crash around him. It’s on the tip of his tongue. He can’t say it.

It stays swirling around him.

He’s built his own personal storm bubble. Water surrounding him. Brad stands in the ocean again, and he’s underwater, but he’s breathing harder than he ever has.

Storms are stronger than glass. No one walks into a storm.

When Brad was thirteen years old, he questioned if all of it, the glass and the storms and the waves, was even worth it.

But he didn’t know how to stop it. So he sat in the eye of his hurricane, eyes squeezed tight, hugging his knees to his chest, surrounded by boxes.

The boxes go up into the sky, higher, higher. Twenty-seven years later, they go on for thousands of miles.

He knows what they say about him. Office sociopath, corporate asshole.

He pretends not to care. It means that they won’t push for more, try to walk through the ocean to where he is drowning, drowning, drowning. He scrounges the area for cardboard and builds boxes around their words.

It’s easier that way. Yeah. It’s easier this way.

David asks if he wants to have dinner one day.

He can feel the wave lapping at his feet, and he inches away from it. _He doesn’t mean what you want him to mean_ , Brad tells himself.

David called a secret meeting one day to talk about him. To tell the rest of the staff to lay off of him, that he really wasn’t so bad, or something like that.

He knows because he walked in on it. “What the fuck is happening?” he asked. “I’m not letting you idiots make any financial decisions without me.”

He didn’t care about the financial decisions.

The whole group looked at David and rolled their eyes, as if to say, see, this is why we don’t try with him. Why are you telling us to try with him if he won’t even try with us?

David explained it to him later in an attempt to make him feel better. About the premise of the meeting, not everyone’s reactions. Brad could guess for himself what everyone’s reactions were.

And it’s impossible to blame them, because Brad knows they were right. So everything stays the same, but at least the boxes are intact.

They almost kiss one day, did you know that? And the wave surges up and Brad can feel it and he knows that he wants it and it’s all there, all of it, the glass and the waves and the storms and his boxes are floating away and he can’t let that happen so he pulls away and the wave is slowly sinking back down.

“I don’t understand you, Brad,” David says softly, and all Brad can do is nod.

He feels sick, so he reaches for a empty box, but he _can’t fucking find any_ , and he can feel his breath come in sharp gasps, because _where the fuck are they_? He didn’t even know it was possible to use them all up; if he’d known that, maybe he would’ve been more careful, maybe he would’ve let just a little more stuff float around in his bubble instead of packing it away.

But then he can hear David say, “But I want to. I’m trying to.”

And that’s something. It’s not everything, but Brad is willing to pretend it is, at least until he finds some more cardboard.

So he gives David a smile. And David smiles back. And they take each other’s hand for a second, and it’s enough.

If glass can shatter slowly, can waves crash slowly?

The answer, Brad thinks, is yes. Because the wave slowly comes down onto him, wrapping him in foam until one day, he’s finally ready, and he tells David how he feels, and he realizes he’s standing on the beach, clothes soaking wet, but on dry land.

  
  


And David doesn’t understand, but he wants to. 

When Brad was eleven years old, he believed in love. When he’s forty-five years old, he thinks he might again.

He asks David to move in with him, and David beams and says yes. They get a new place. It’s by the beach. The night before they move, they sit on the sand, looking at the stars.

David says something about the universe. Brad agrees.

The next morning, Brad carries his boxes into their room and takes one down from the top of the stack. The cardboard is worn out. The tape is barely holding together.

David walks in, and Brad takes a long look at him, and he opens the box.

**Author's Note:**

> apparently i really cannot write fics that aren't a weirdass vaguely poetry style
> 
> follow me on twt @inspectornadir !


End file.
